


The Wedding Planner

by ladyknightley



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Romance, garden sheds, silliness, the usual nonsense, you know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-04
Updated: 2018-06-04
Packaged: 2019-05-18 07:02:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14847989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyknightley/pseuds/ladyknightley
Summary: When Hannah and Neville get engaged, Augusta Longbottom knows just what they want: a wedding planner! Or she thinks she does. What they really want is some alone time...





	The Wedding Planner

“And what are we thinking the _theme_ of the wedding will be?”

They exchange glances. “Um...us?” suggests Neville. “Our...selves? Our...union?” He fizzles out. The man—wedding planner? Engagement party organiser? He can’t remember precisely what Gran had said—heaves an enormous sigh and turns to Hannah.

“What _colour scheme_ does Madam envisage for the main event?”

“Colour scheme?” she asks. “Um...well...Madam has always liked _yellow_.” She adds this last in a similarly sycophantic tone, and Neville bites the inside of his cheek to keep himself from laughing out loud.

“ _Yellow_ ,” the man repeats, in the sort of voice you might say ‘chronic spattergriot’ or ‘explosive diarrhoea’. The two of them exchange glances again, then hurriedly look away.

“Perhaps,” Gran says crisply, “I might show you the gardens whilst Neville and Hannah think very hard for a few moments about themes and colour schemes.” She glares at them both, then takes his arm, and leads him towards the flutterby bush, which is currently in bloom and looking delightful. “Now, my Neville has always had the most marvellous green thumb—it runs in the family, of course—so we are hoping to hold the engagement party here in no less than a month, so we can take full advantage of the grounds whilst they are at their peak.”

“Certainly, Madam,” he says, and Hannah feels a touch of alarm that both she _and_ her grandmother-in-law (to be) should addressed in the same way. And then a touch more alarm when she hears her say _well, yes, just a small engagement party, two hundred and fifty guests perhaps; three hundred at the absolute most_.

“What happened to a small shindig at the Leaky?” she hisses. “I’m sure I could’ve persuaded Tom to go for an open bar. It would only have been for the old school crowd anyway, we wouldn’t have needed that much space...”

“You’d exclude my esteemed colleague Minerva McGonagall from a party with an open bar?” he replies, incredulous. “I don’t even know why I’m marrying you.” He kisses her quickly, to make sure she knows he’s joking, but she pushes him away.

“Don’t,” she warns. “You cannot leave me alone for nearly _two weeks_ and do things like that when I can’t—when we can’t—oh, stop it,” she groans. “I can’t even think straight,” Neville, who has been kissing her neck, stops. She groans again. “This isn’t fair,” she whines, stomping her foot.

“I know,” he sighs. He pulls her in close, rests his chin on top of her head. “How long before we can legitimately leave them to it?”

Hannah laughs. “I’m torn between saying, let’s fake a horrible illness and get going _now_ , and absolute terror regarding what your Gran would agree to on our behalf if we aren’t there to control things.”

“It doesn’t bear thinking about,” agrees Neville solemnly.

“It’s fine, we’ll just elope,” she says, running a finger along his jawline.

“Don’t joke about that right now,” he says, swallowing.

“Don’t joke about what?” She pouts and bats her eyelashes exaggeratedly. “The two of us...running away together...somewhere where we can have _complete_ …and _total_... _privacy_...” She punctuates the last three words with kisses, and he groans. It sends a shiver through her, more so when he responds by suddenly pushing her up against the gate to the back garden and kissing her with such force she forgets _everything_.

She’s fumbling for his belt and his hands are already snaking up her thighs, under her dress, when: “Would sir like the sandwiches to be left here?”

Betsy, Augusta Longbottom’s house elf, smiles brightly up at them, and Hannah leans against the wall, closing her eyes in deep, _deep_ frustration. Neville manages to draw on deep inner reserves of politeness and suggests she goes and asks Gran what she wants done with them, and Betsy dashes off at once, but the moment has been lost entirely.

“I’m beginning to think that this is a conspiracy,” Hannah says wryly, and Neville snorts.

“I agree,” he says, sliding down the wall and sitting on the grass. Hannah sits down next to him and rests her head on his shoulder. “So. Eloping?”

She holds out her left hand, and they both study the engagement ring that sits there. It’s a tiny diamond, cut into the shape of a rose; it’s been in her possession for fifteen days (and fourteen nights), and she _loves_ it. What she hasn’t loved is being a fiancée.

Well—that’s not quite true. She’d loved being proposed to. She’d loved _that_ night. What she hadn’t loved was then being separated from Neville for a fortnight. Normally he lived with her, in a set of rooms above the Leaky Cauldron, and floo’d to school every morning. This worked fine, most of the time, but the day they had gotten engaged, one of the Professors who lived at Hogwarts had had a magical mishap and had had to spend a fortnight recovering in St Mungo’s. Whilst Professor Flitwick was now very well and could return to work, when he had been away from school, Neville had had to live there because of some stupid rule about the number of teachers required on site because of staff to pupil ratios. Or something. Hannah had been so cross about it all, she’d elected not to properly listen, so she didn’t fully understand.

He’d suggested she come up and stay there with her too, but she hadn’t been able to face the knowing looks from Professor McGonagall and the other staff if she’d done so. Or worse, what if Hagrid had caught her sneaking out in the morning? It didn’t bear thinking about.

So she’d faced their separation with resignation, and imagination, entertaining herself with fantasies about what they would get up to as soon as he returned. (And, okay, maybe a fortnight wasn’t that long. Under normal circumstances, she was sure she’d be fine. But really. They had _literally just gotten engaged_.)

He'd written to her on Friday night that everything had gone swimmingly in Professor Flitwick’s recovery, and the Healers were satisfied that he was fit to go back to the school. He would be arriving there, his letter said, at ten o’clock on Saturday morning, just after breakfast.

At ten fifteen, after the most cursory of congratulations on his full recovery and hand-overs, Neville had arrived at the Leaky Cauldron, where Hannah had been waiting for him, wearing nothing but the new lingerie she had brought for the occasion.

At ten twenty, there had been a knock on the door to her private quarters. They had drawn apart. “I think,” Hannah had said, slowly and carefully, “that you should tell Tom that I have developed a headache which I intend to cultivate until at least Thursday, and will be out of commission until then. I cannot work. He will have to do without me. He should leave. And then grab one of the do-not-disturb signs from down the hall whilst you’re at it.”

“Roger that,” he’s grinned, snapping her a salute. Even seeing him leave was sort of nice, because it just heightened the anticipation. She’d shivered.

And then she’d heard him say, very loudly, “Oh, hello Gran! How nice to see you? You want to come in? Oh, let me get you a chair!”

“There is no need to shout so,” she’d heard Augusta Longbottom’s dulcet tones respond. “I may be old, but I’m not _deaf_!”

Hannah had known the volume was for her benefit, so she’d hastily thrown on a dress and walked out of the bedroom to greet her, wondering why she had come and how quickly they could reasonably as her to leave. It turned out to be worse than they could possibly imagine. Excited by their engagement, she had gotten in touch with _the_ most in-demand wedding planner in the country (or so he claimed) whom she was now employing to plan their wedding, and, first, engagement party.

“That’s very kind of you Gran, but—” Neville had begun, kindly but firmly.

“Didn’t you get my letter? We’ve been waiting for you since ten!”

“Been waiting for...?” he’d asked.

“The two of you. Honestly! We have the initial planning meeting this morning, then lunch so we can show him the grounds—we thought it best for the engagement party to be held quickly, so we can move on with the planning for the main event, so at home seems the best place for it—then in the afternoon Hannah has a preliminary fitting with Twillfit and Tatting.”

“What for?” Hannah had asked dumbly.

Augusta had barely refrained from rolling her eyes. “A wedding dress, of course,” she’d said. “Honestly, did you not get my letter explaining all of this, Neville? I sent it up to the school three days ago; do they not distribute post daily anymore?”

Hannah could tell by his face that he knew of a letter, but that he had elected not to read it. Worse, Augusta could, too. Which meant that they had had no time to concoct an excuse, and no option but to follow her to the floo, Neville muttering profuse apologies under his breath to her all the way.

They’d sat through a two-hour presentation from the wedding planner—somehow, neither of them could remember his name, which might have had something to do with the instant dislike they’d both felt when he’d visibly deflated seeing the two of them—on themes and visions and schemes. And now they are on the ‘viewing the grounds’ part of the day.

“It isn’t really how I’d imagined today going,” Hannah sighs. Neville pats her knee sympathetically, then straightens up.

“How _had_ you imagined today?” he asks with interest.

“ _Well_ ,” she says. And then she leans in and whispers something quite lengthy into his left ear.

“...golly,” he manages, at the end of it.

“And then I’d...” she twists around, climbing over his lap (golly, indeed) and whispers something else in his right ear.

When she’s done, there’s a very long pause. “Do you not like the sound of that?” she asks, starting to feel a little worried. They’re not big into, well, _that_ kind of talk. Neville’s more of a _doer_. As it were. And she doesn’t want to make him feel uncomfortable...

“What I don’t like,” he says carefully, “is the complete and utter lack of privacy we have right now. If I didn’t think it might give Gran a heart attack to walk in on us, I’d take you right here and now and do all of that _and more_.” He reaches out and pulls her firmly back onto his lap, and she gasps in delight. Then realises the truth of his words, and sighs.

Except...

From the angle she is sat now, she can see a shed. A very old, run-down shed, used for storage and not much else. “What?” he asks, and she nods at it. He has to twist around to see it properly, cricking his neck slightly, and when he turns back to her, his face is inscrutable.

He’ll say no, of course. He’ll say he wishes they could, but they can’t possibly. He’ll be regretful. She knows it.

“...race you?” he says.

He can barely get the door open—there’s some kind of complex latch situation going on, and his hands are busy elsewhere. Laughing, she tries to help him, but her hands are busy too, and in the end,  he manages to wriggle his wand out of a back pocket and, she’s pretty sure, blast it open. She grabs his shirt and pulls him inside, kissing him all the while, and he’s reciprocating, kissing her and pushing her against the wall, kicking the door shut firmly behind them.

The shed contains decades of garden detritus—broken tools, old bags of compost, empty seed trays and if she had it in her to notice such things any more, she’d spot the cobwebs all over the place, cobwebs that are now in her hair and on her clothes and just anywhere he’s pressed her against. The spiders, in a show of discretion, have averted their many eyes.

She is desperate for him, pressing herself so hard against him she’s half-amazed they don’t meld together as one. His hands are in her hair, on the small of her back, up her dress, and hers are just as adventurous. And then he lifts her up off the ground, and she wraps her legs and arms around his torso and he pushes everything off a nearby workbench, and all but throws her down on it.

Years of rubbish—most of it made of metal—fall to the ground, with a resounding, _loud_ crash. The noise is enough to wrest her from the moment, and she pulls away, now nearly horizontal on the bench with his hands wrapped around the upper band of her underwear. “Everything okay?” he asks.

“Everyone—the noise—they’ll come looking—” She can hardly speak, breathless and barely able to form sentences, but he understands at once.

“I cast a silencing spell on the door,” he says. Then he grins. “We can make as much noise as we want.”

“Oh _God_ ,” she groans, and reaches for him.

They’re moving together already, clothes still a barrier—but not for long. It occurs to her, almost as though she’s a random stranger observing the scene, that her hands are shaking so badly she can barely undo his belt buckle, but it’s not because she’s afraid. She’s never felt more certain as she reaches to him again and again and again, and he meets her every time, murmuring her name over and over between kisses, and she starts to feel like she might _die_ if she doesn’t have him _right now_.

And then, just at the last moment, he pulls away. “Everything okay?”

She smiles. “Everything is _perfect_ ,” she promises.

“Good,” he replies. “I just wanted to check.” He leans in towards her, slowly, then at the last second pulls back again. “Hey, Hannah?”

She reaches up, lacing her hands together behind his head. “Yeah?” They stare at each other for a moment, and then, oh-so-quickly, he kisses the inside of her left wrist. And it is this that nearly undoes her, this sudden, ridiculous moment of intimacy, of delicacy, the kind of gesture that makes her heart sing.

“I missed you,” he says, and it’s so earnest, so honest.

“Hey, Nev?” she asks.

“Yeah?” he repeats.

“I _really_ missed you, too.” And he smiles.

“I guess it helps that we’ve got a whole lifetime together to make up for it, then,” he says.

“And no time like the present to start,” she agrees, and he considers this for a tantalisingly stretched out moment, nods once, and _then_ crashes back into her.

She’s crying out for him already and he seems to realise this, because he’s on his knees, pushing her dress more fully out of the way, and she begs him to hurry. He’s trailing kisses up her legs, starting at her ankles, moving up, caressing the back of her knees, and he reaches her inner thighs, and she thinks this cannot, cannot go on much longer or she will surely _die_ , and—

“...very suitable for storage, and costume changes. We can ask the fire eaters to prepare in here, then they can pop out at the right moment, and—oh!”

In the retelling of it all to Susan, Hannah will see the funny side. She will see how completely hilarious it is to be walked in on, _in flagrante delicto_ (well, almost), in a garden shed filled with old bags of compost and broken spades, by the planner of her wedding and her grandmother-in-law (well, almost). Or at least, she likes to think she will.

Because right now, all she can feel is a burning shame. More than that. She is _mortified_. There is no possible explanation for this other than the obvious. There is no way they can get away with it. And whilst she is sure that, in theory, Augusta Longbottom knows that neither of them are as pure as the driven snow anymore, knowing that she knows in theory is very different to, well, spelling it out to her.

Augusta Longbottom runs in the same social circles as all of Hannah’s myriad Great-Aunts. As the sensible old ladies who come to the Leaky Cauldron to drink gillywater and lime and play a hand of whist on a Thursday afternoon. As _Minerva frigging McGonagall_. And she will tell all of those people what she caught that _slattern_ Miss Abbott up to, and Hannah will never, ever live it down.

Just as she’s about to apparate to the Ministry and book herself a one-way Portkey to Australia, if not the moon, she hears a crack, and Neville gets to his feet. The heel of her favourite pair of shoes—well, one of them—is clutched tightly in his hand, and he holds it up for all to see.

“I did tell her that those shoes wouldn’t be a bright idea, but hey, my students don’t listen to me either.” He shrugs. “She came a cropper on the gravel down by the pond, and I was sure we had some spellotape in here somewhere. I’d hoped to do a bodge job until we could get to the cobbler in the week. But someone must have hidden it...”

Hannah closes her eyes. There is no possible way anyone will buy this, _and_ her favourite shoes have now bitten the dust. And she’s still not been... _Merlin._

There is an absolutely excruciating pause. And then: “In the flowerpot over on the left-hand self,” Augusta says calmly. “Horatio and I will give you some privacy whilst you see to it.”

“Of course,” Neville says faintly.

The wedding planner—Horatio? Who knew—bustles out, and Augusta heads for the door, too. Neville and Hannah exchange disbelieving glances. Surely, _surely_ they cannot have just gotten away with it...

Just as she reaches the shed door, she turns back and looks at them. “Oh,” she adds. “If you find an earring whilst you’re hunting it out, do let me know.” They exchange glances again, this time of confusion.

“An...earring?” Neville asks.

“Yes,” Augusta says almost dreamily. “Emerald, I recall. Claw set in gold.” There’s a pause. “I lost it in here on the night of my own engagement party to your grandfather, oh, too many years ago to count. We were on the floor, you see, looking for it, but his mother did not think that was a suitable... _position_ for a young lady, so I had to leave him to it and step outside to fix my dress. But, do you know, I never found it again. It was such a pretty set, too. I do like emeralds.”

She pauses, hums a little, and Hannah looks _anywhere_ but at Neville. “Anyway. The spellotape is in the flower pot. Neville, you might sort that out whilst you step outside with me, Hannah. I think your dress needs fixing...”

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this a month or so ago for my dear friend Emily's birthday (you might know her as Glisseo/bigquidditchhero). I haven't been posting as frequently recently, but I am still writing on my tumblr (ladyknightley) and a kind person reminded me that I haven't been cross-posting here nearly as regularly. So my goal for this week is to post everything that's on there, here, and then...who knows? Hopefully something new soon. I can't promise it won't be total fluffy nonsense like this, but I figure that's what you're here for, right?


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